Expert Information and Majority Decisions

This paper studies dichotomous majority voting in common interest committees where each member receives not only a private signal but also a public signal observed by all of them. The public signal represents, e.g. expert information presented to an entire committee and its quality is higher than that of each individual private signal. We identify two informative symmetric strategy equilibria, namely i) the mixed strategy equilibrium where each member randomizes between following the private and public signals should they disagree; and ii) the pure strategy equilibrium where they follow the public signal for certain. The former outperforms the latter. The presence of the public signal precludes the equilibrium where every member follows their own signal, which is an equilibrium in the absence of the public signal. The mixed strategy equilibrium in the presence of the public signal outperforms the sincere voting equilibrium without the public signal, but the latter may be more efficient than the pure strategy equilibrium in the presence of the public signal. We suggest that whether expert information improves committee decision making depends on equilibrium selection.

Creació d'una ràdio musical participativa amb difusió online i FM

Aquest projecte té com a propòsit crear una ràdio musical participativa amb difusió online i FM on a partir d’una interfície web l’usuari pugui participar-hi activament votant les cançons que hi sonaran. A més a més els usuaris registrats gaudiran d’una xarxa social on podran fer amistats i deixa’ls-hi comentaris. Primer de tot faig una ràpida introducció a l’estat de l’art de les ràdios actuals, a continuació analitzo els requeriments, especifico el comportament desitjat del sistema, explico detalladament el disseny i l’ implementació i, per últim, faig un seguit de proves de les quals n’extrec les conclusions.

Redistributive taxation, public expenditure, and size of governent

We introduce a model of redistributive income taxation and public expenditure. This joint treatment permits analyzing the interdependencies between the two policies: one cannot be chosen independently of the other. Empirical evidence reveals that partisan confrontation essentially falls on expenditure policies rather than on income taxation. We examine the case in which the expenditure policy (or the size of government) is chosen by majority voting and income taxation is consistently adjusted. This adjustment consists of designing the income tax schedule that, given the expenditure policy, achieves consensus among the population. The model determines the consensus in- come tax schedule, the composition of public expenditure and the size of government. The main results are that inequality is negatively related to the size of government and to the pro-rich bias in public expenditure, and positively or negatively related to the marginal income tax, depending on substitutability between government supplied and market goods. These implications are validated using OECD data.

Work values, endogenous sentiments and redistribution

We examine the interactions between individual behavior, sentiments and the social contract in a model of rational voting over redistribution. Agents have moral "work values". Individuals' self-esteem and social consideration of others are endogenously determined comparing behaviors to moral standards. Attitudes toward redistribution depend on self-interest and social preferences. We characterize the politico-economic equilibria in which sentiments, labor supply and redistribution are determined simultaneously. The equilibria feature different degrees of "social cohesion" and redistribution depending on pre-tax income inequality. In clustered equilibria the poor are held partly responsible for their low income since they work less than the moral standard and hence redistribution is low. The paper proposes a novel explanation for the emergence of different sentiments and social contracts across countries. The predictions appear broadly in line with well-documented differences between the United States and Europe.

Are parties domocratizing themselves? the evolution of leardership selection in Spain (1977-2008)

The aim of this paper is to verify, for the Spanish case, whether between 1977 and 2008 has increased the internal democracy of the major political parties (PSOE, AP / PP, PCE / IU, PNV and CDC). To do this, we will focus on their leadership selection processes, one of the key elements associated with intra-party democracy. The paper is going to introduce data on four different dimensions of leadership selection: the certification process, the voting procedure, the inclusiveness of the selectorate and, finally, the degree of competitiveness. The results will show that have been few changes in the leadership selection processes of the Spanish political parties since 1977. However, the results of the Spanish case will also be used to suggest some preliminary links between the four dimensions.

Three Essays on the Formation and Impact of Economic Policy

Introduction In my thesis I argue that economic policy is all about economics and politics. Consequently, analysing and understanding economic policy ideally has at least two parts. The economics part, which is centered around the expected impact of a specific policy on the real economy both in terms of efficiency and equity. The insights of this part point into which direction the fine-tuning of economic policies should go. However, fine-tuning of economic policies will be most likely subject to political constraints. That is why, in the politics part, a much better understanding can be gained by taking into account how the incentives of politicians and special interest groups as well as the role played by different institutional features affect the formation of economic policies. The first part and chapter of my thesis concentrates on the efficiency-related impact of economic policies: how does corporate income taxation in general, and corporate income tax progressivity in specific, affect the creation of new firms? Reduced progressivity and flat-rate taxes are in vogue. By 2009, 22 countries are operating flat-rate income tax systems, as do 7 US states and 14 Swiss cantons (for corporate income only). Tax reform proposals in the spirit of the "flat tax" model typically aim to reduce three parameters: the average tax burden, the progressivity of the tax schedule, and the complexity of the tax code. In joint work, Marius Brülhart and I explore the implications of changes in these three parameters on entrepreneurial activity, measured by counts of firm births in a panel of Swiss municipalities. Our results show that lower average tax rates and reduced complexity of the tax code promote firm births. Controlling for these effects, reduced progressivity inhibits firm births. Our reading of these results is that tax progressivity has an insurance effect that facilitates entrepreneurial risk taking. The positive effects of lower tax levels and reduced complexity are estimated to be significantly stronger than the negative effect of reduced progressivity. To the extent that firm births reflect desirable entrepreneurial dynamism, it is not the flattening of tax schedules that is key to successful tax reforms, but the lowering of average tax burdens and the simplification of tax codes. Flatness per se is of secondary importance and even appears to be detrimental to firm births. The second part of my thesis, which corresponds to the second and third chapter, concentrates on how economic policies are formed. By the nature of the analysis, these two chapters draw on a broader literature than the first chapter. Both economists and political scientists have done extensive research on how economic policies are formed. Thereby, researchers in both disciplines have recognised the importance of special interest groups trying to influence policy-making through various channels. In general, economists base their analysis on a formal and microeconomically founded approach, while abstracting from institutional details. In contrast, political scientists' frameworks are generally richer in terms of institutional features but lack the theoretical rigour of economists' approaches. I start from the economist's point of view. However, I try to borrow as much as possible from the findings of political science to gain a better understanding of how economic policies are formed in reality. In the second chapter, I take a theoretical approach and focus on the institutional policy framework to explore how interactions between different political institutions affect the outcome of trade policy in presence of special interest groups' lobbying. Standard political economy theory treats the government as a single institutional actor which sets tariffs by trading off social welfare against contributions from special interest groups seeking industry-specific protection from imports. However, these models lack important (institutional) features of reality. That is why, in my model, I split up the government into a legislative and executive branch which can both be lobbied by special interest groups. Furthermore, the legislative has the option to delegate its trade policy authority to the executive. I allow the executive to compensate the legislative in exchange for delegation. Despite ample anecdotal evidence, bargaining over delegation of trade policy authority has not yet been formally modelled in the literature. I show that delegation has an impact on policy formation in that it leads to lower equilibrium tariffs compared to a standard model without delegation. I also show that delegation will only take place if the lobby is not strong enough to prevent it. Furthermore, the option to delegate increases the bargaining power of the legislative at the expense of the lobbies. Therefore, the findings of this model can shed a light on why the U.S. Congress often practices delegation to the executive. In the final chapter of my thesis, my coauthor, Antonio Fidalgo, and I take a narrower approach and focus on the individual politician level of policy-making to explore how connections to private firms and networks within parliament affect individual politicians' decision-making. Theories in the spirit of the model of the second chapter show how campaign contributions from lobbies to politicians can influence economic policies. There exists an abundant empirical literature that analyses ties between firms and politicians based on campaign contributions. However, the evidence on the impact of campaign contributions is mixed, at best. In our paper, we analyse an alternative channel of influence in the shape of personal connections between politicians and firms through board membership. We identify a direct effect of board membership on individual politicians' voting behaviour and an indirect leverage effect when politicians with board connections influence non-connected peers. We assess the importance of these two effects using a vote in the Swiss parliament on a government bailout of the national airline, Swissair, in 2001, which serves as a natural experiment. We find that both the direct effect of connections to firms and the indirect leverage effect had a strong and positive impact on the probability that a politician supported the government bailout.

Digitale politische Partizipation - Spannungsfeld zwischen MyPolitics und OurPolitics

Der Beitrag untersucht soziale und politische Aspekte digitaler politischer Partizipation. Einerseits müssen die Optionen für MyPolitics ausgeschöpft werden, indem Instrumente für elektronische Abstimmungen und Wahlen bereitgestellt werden. Andererseits sollte das Potenzial politischer Partizipation genutzt und Plattformen für OurPolitics gefördert werden. Solche Plattformen, ergänzt durch geeignete Matching-Verfahren, bringen Interessierte mit ähnlichen Anliegen zusammen und fördern politische Gestaltungskraft. Sie sind ein erster Schritt zum Public Memory einer digitalen Gesellschaft und bereichern nachfolgende Generationen mit ihrem Gedankengut.

Stability and change in party preferences.

This article analyses stability and volatility of party preferences using data from the Swiss Household-Panel (SHP), which, for the first time, allow studying transitions and stability of voters over several years in Switzerland. Analyses cover the years 1999- 2007 and systematically distinguish changes between party blocks and changes within party blocks. The first part looks at different patterns of change, which show relatively high volatility. The second part tests several theories on causes of such changes applying a multinomial random-effects model. Results show that party preferences stabilise with their duration and with age and that the electoral cycle, political sophistication, socio-structural predispositions, the household-context as well as party size and the number of parties each explain part of electoral volatility. Different results for withinand between party-block changes underlie the importance of that differentiation.

Repeated Agenda Setting and the Unanimous Approval of Bad Policies

This paper addresses the puzzle of why legislation, even highly inefficient legislation, may pass with overwhelming majorities. We model a egislature in which the same agenda setter serves for two periods, showing how he can exploit a legislature (completely) in the first period by romising future benefits to legislators who support him. In equilibrium, large majority of legislators vote for the first-period proposal because a ote in favor maintains the chance for membership in the minimum winning coalition in the future. The model thus generates situations in which egislators approve policies by large majorities, or even unanimously, that enefit few, or even none, of them. The results are robust: some institutional arrangements, such as super-majority rules or sequential voting, imit but do not eliminate the agenda setter's power to exploit the legislature, and other institutions such as secret voting do not limit his power.

A Model of Party Discipline in a Congress

This paper studies party discipline in a congress within a political agency framework with retrospective voting. Party discipline serves as an incentive device to induce office- motivated congress members to perform in line with the party leadership's objective of controlling both the executive and the legislative branches of government. I show fi…rst that the same party is more likely to control both branches of government (i.e., uni…ed government) the stronger the party discipline in the congress is. Second, the leader of the governing party imposes more party discipline under uni…ed government than does the opposition leader under divided government. Moreover, the incumbents' aggregate performance increases with party discipline, so a representative voter becomes better off. JEL classi…cation: D72. Keywords: Party discipline; Political agency; Retrospective voting; Office-motivated politicians.

Does VAA popularity pay off ? : Smartvote users preferred candidates and their results in the 2007 Swiss federal elections

Voting is fundamental for democracy, however, this decisive democratic act requires quite an effort. Decision making at elections depends largely on the interest to gather information about candidates and parties, the effort to process the information at hand and the motivation to reach a vote choice. Especially in electoral systems with highly fragmented party systems and hundreds of candidates running for office, the process of decision making in the pre‐election sphere is highly demanding. In the age of information and communication technologies, new possibilities for gathering and processing such information are available. Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) provide guidance to voters prior to the act of voting and assist voters in choosing between different candidates and parties on the basis of issue congruence. Meanwhile widely used all over the world, scientific inquiry into the effect of such tools on electoral behavior is ongoing. This paper adds to the current debate by focusing on whether the popularity of candidates on the Swiss VAA smartvote eventually paid off at the 2007 Swiss federal elections and whether there is a direct link between the performance of a candidate on the tool and his or her electoral performance.

The Strength of Promissory Representation : What Makes MPs Change their Positions ?

The paper analyses the positional congruence between pre-election statements in the Swiss voting assistance application "smartvote" and post-election behaviour in the Swiss lower house between 2003 and 2009. For this purpose, we selected 34 smartvote questions which subsequently came up in parliament. Unlike previous studies which assessed the program-to-policy linkage of governments or party groups the paper examines the question at the level of individual MPs which seems appropriate for political systems which follow the idea of power dispersion. While the average rate of political congruence is at some 85 percent, a multivariate analysis detects the underlying factors which push or curb a candidate's propensity to change his or her mind once elections are over. The results show that positional changes are more likely if (1) MPs are freshmen, (2) individual voting behaviour is invisible to the public, (3) the vote is not about a party's core issue, (4) the MP belongs to a party which is located in the political centre, and (5) if the pre-election statement is in disagreement with the majority position of the legislative party group. The last-mentioned factor is paramount: the farer away a candidate's pre-election profile from his or her party is located, the weaker turns out to be the electoral link of promissory representation.

Disseny i implementació de la base de dades : Sistema de votació ciutadana a nivell Europeu a través d'Internet

La Comunitat Europea ha encarregat el disseny i implementació d'una base de dades per a un futur sistema de votacions ciutadanes per Internet. Aquest projecte realitza una proposta del disseny de la base de dades segons els requeriments especificats, i la seva implementació en un sistema de gestió de bases de dades, que en aquest cas és l'ORACLE.